Intelligent call screening in a virtual communications network

Abstract

A unified and systematic approach is taken both to design of a virtual communications network within a carrier's telecommunications network, and to design the screening filters provided in the VCN data base which control the admission of calls to the network. For this purpose, telecommunications traffic information that is relevant for both the design of the VCN architecture as well as for development of the screening filters is aggregated and applied both to a network design tool that is used to generate the customer's virtual network configuration, as well as to a screening filter generator (SFG). The traffic information may include, for example, traffic data contained in network and customer premises equipment call detail records and billing data. In one embodiment, the SFG also receives output information from the network design tool, indicative of the on-net and off-net locations in the VCN, and information from a carrier data base that provides a weighting factor indicative of the incidence of fraudulent calling to different domestic and international destinations. The SFG is arranged to jointly process the traffic information as well as the fraudulent calling information (together with information relating to VCN design parameters, if desired) in order to generate screening filters that can be installed, and thereafter used, in the VCN to determine, on a call by call basis, whether a call made using the VCN is allowed or denied. Advantageously, the screening filters are designed so that they will minimize or reduce the possibility that the VCN will be used to make fraudulent calls.